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Monthly Archives: November 2016

An Australian government document described the exclusion of Aboriginal Australians and Nuclear Test Participants from official health considerations are follows:
“Two population groups are excluded from the (Exposure Dose) calculations. They are the Aboriginals living away from population centres and the personnel involved directly in nuclear test activities. Otherwise, the total population is represented in the estimated radiation doses.” [1]
In other words, those most affected were excluded.

The Howard government originally promised to include Aboriginal people and
Pastoralists in the nuclear test health study announced in 1999. The responsible minister,Bruce Scott, MP, stated: “I have announced the compilation of a nominal roll of exservice personnel involved in the testing and also civilians, aborigines and pastoralists, for whom information is available. This nominal roll will be used to conduct mortality and cancer incidence studies of Australians involved in the UK nuclear tests. This will
enable the Government to determine if current compensation and assessment
arrangements are sufficient.” [2]

In March 2006 the then responsible minister, Mr Bruce Billson, MP, emailed me as
follows: “Indigenous Australians were excluded from the study because there is no available list of Indigenous Australians who were present in the areas of the tests at the time. In the 1950s and 1960s the indigenous population was not counted in the census and there were no records kept of Indigenous Australians who lived in the test areas.” [3]

This exclusive act is abhorrent and disgusting. The authorities did not want to know in the 1950s. And today Ministers of the Crown justify an exclusion from study on the grounds of lack of knowledge. Rather, admitted ignorance is a call to study to any enlightened mind.
So again, the obvious signs of external contact with Beta emitters – residual Beta radiation burn damage – has been ignored, along with the incipient internal dose, as recently as 2006.
The beta burns carried by Australians date from 1952 to 1957. Every official instrument created to examine the impact of the atomic tests has failed to admit the evidence these beta burns present. For they represent both as proof of suffering and as technical biological markers of external dose received. The skin lesions can be read as a form of dose marker from which actual external dose can be determined. [4]

What did the Australian Government find and conclude about the state of health of those who were included in the health survey?

In regard to Australia’s Nuclear Veterans, the “Mortality and Cancer
Incidence Main Findings” document of the “Australian Participants in British
Nuclear Tests in Australia Study”, Department of Veterans Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia, June 2006, states the following:

“The cancer incidence study showed an overall increase in the number of
cancers in test participants, similar to that found in the mortality study. The
number of cancer cases found among participants was 2456, which was 23%
higher than expected. A significant increase in both the number of deaths and
the number of cases was found for (figures in brackets show increase in
mortality and incidence):
• all cancers (18% and 23%)
• cancers of the lip, oral cavity and pharynx (50% and 41%)
• lung cancer (20% and 28%)
• colorectal cancer (24% and 16%)
prostate • cancer (26% and 22%).
The number of cancer cases (but not the number of deaths) was also
significantly greater in test participants for the following cancers (figures in
brackets show increase in incidence):
• oesophageal cancer (48%)
• melanoma (40%)
• all leukaemias (43%)
all leukaemia’s except chronic lymphatic leukaemia (61%).
Other findings included:
• of the 26 mesothelioma cases in test participants, 16 occurred in RAN
personnel, which was nearly three times the number expected
in RAAF personnel, there was nearly double the expected number of deaths
from melanoma, and cases of melanoma were increased by two–thirds.
The increases in cancer rates do not appear to have been caused by
exposure to radiation.”

Most people can see a self serving statement when they see one.

Suspected Beta Radiation Burns in the Australian Outback
In 1953 the late Kukkika was a young girl, living in South Australia’s northern
areas. October of that year saw the first British bomb test series in South Australia take place at Emu Field, a large clay-pan in the northern part of the state.

Over a period of many years working in the northern parts of Southern Australia, Sister Michele Madigan came to know Kukkika.
Kukkika told Michele that one night during the time of the bombs, she had gone to sleep on the ground. The next day she woke up unwell; her skin was scarred white and painful.
Kukkika with sound reason believed that the ground upon which she and her people had camped had been contaminated by fallout from atomic bomb tests.

The photographs taken by Michele show severe de-pigmentation of Kukkika’s skin.
Kukkika suffered this disfigurement for over fifty years with no aid or acknowledgement from successive governments
I believe the suffering of Kukkika was caused by beta radiation burns. The photographs accord with those taken of people who suffered similar injuries in the Pacific as a result of US nuclear weapons tests. The US has acknowledged this. Kukkika was not the only Australian to suffer in this manner. Many people have, and do so still.

Lallie Lennon was an adult when the smoke from one of the Emu Field bombs engulfed her and her son Bruce. The tent in which her two daughters slept was also engulfed by the thick, heavy, twin coloured smoke.
Lallie and Bruce suffered sickness and painful skin. Lallie also suffered a loss of skin colour, the affected areas turning white.

The symptoms have lasted ever since. At the time her suffering first started, doctors refused to give a diagnosis.

Lallie was interviewed in the film “Backs to the Blast”, made in the 1981 by Harry Bardwell. In the film she is asked why her skin is scarred and white in the affected places. Lallie tells her story on film. [5]

Many other Australian Aboriginal people have suffered the same skin condition from the bomb smoke. People were blinded and some people died.

When I saw Harry Bardwell’s film, and saw and heard Lallie speak, I could not
understand why no-one had told her condition is called Beta Radiation Burn.
That was a little while ago now. The government says Australian Aborigines got sick because they were scared of the bomb smoke that engulfed them. Maybe. But that is a stupid answer to the questions. While did Yami go blind? Why were Kukkika and Lallie burnt white? Fear cannot do that. It takes a Special Weapon.
Lallie has spoken long and strong about all this. Lallie has written a book entitled “Maralinga Dust”. [6]
Yami Lester has also told his story in his book. [7]
Jessie Lennon wrote a book. [8]
Some people in Australia remember these things. Many others who wanted nuclear activities to expand claim that South Australia’s Aboriginal People have been given too much consideration. I have more to say on the repeated exclusion of Aboriginal People from the consideration of governments and from full participation in the life of South Australia.

All of the preceeding documents conveyed that the information I sought did not exist.

I refer also to the following documents addressed to me by the then Minister for Environment and Conservation, Mr. John Hill:

03EC2212 dated 11 June 2003
03EC2951 dated 19 June 2003

Copies of these two letters are attached as enclosures herewith.

On 11 June 2003 Minister Hill advised me that in relation to my request for this information that:

“Your letter refers to a Freedom of Information application lodged by Dr Cross in January 2002. You should note that this application was submitted before the election of a Labor Government in South Australia in March 2002. At that time, the secrecy provisions of the Act prevented the release of the information requested by Dr. Cross. …..This government was elected to office with a commitment to do whatever is reasonable and appropriate to ensure there are no impediments to the public availability of information……” The then Minister then confirmed the election promise to specifically to change the “secrecy” provisions of section 19 of the Radiation Protection and Control Act, 1982.
This was done, the Minister informed me, on 5 December 2002.

I note that the State Government’s formal documents addressed to Dr Cross regarding the rejection of the Cross FOI Application and the of the rejection of the subsequent appeal both confirm that the documents do indeed exist.

This is in stark contrast to the State government documents addressed to me dated 3.2.1995, 1.11.1995, 19.5.1996 all advise me via Fitch, Abbott and Olsen that the documents I sought and still seek did not exist. In this regard Mr Olsen SA Water to supply me with documents for a later period which did and do exist. Letters Letter MFI, 100876, SA Water 10713/95, E.J. Phipps, Chief Executive (with enclosures: Data sheets of radiological monitoring of SA Water storages from 1964 to 1995), and Letter MFI 00876, SA Water Corp 10713/95, E.J. Phipps, Chief Executive confirm that with the supply of the documents covering the data from 1964 I now had all documents which exist. As helpful as the documents are to me, these documents had previously been supplied to Dr. Helen Caldicott during the period of the 1970s. She did not have an easy time obtaining the documents, as I recall from listening Bazz and Pilko on breakfast radio at the time. I have no association with Dr. Caldicott just in case that helps my case in any way.

I refer also to the letter to me from then Minister Hill dated 19 June 2003. In this letter the State labor Government advises me that “Your matter is receiving attention and a response will be forwarded to you as soon as possible.” The letter is signed by Carolyne Lee, Office Manager for the Minister for Environment and Conservation.

How much longer will the State Government be in providing me with an answer to my requests? Can I see the documents which record the readings from the radiological monitoring of SA drinking water storages fom 1956 until 1963?

I point out that the documents began to exist from 1956. They still exist. The alleged will of the government is to possess a spirit of openness and democracy in regards to the information it holds in trust for the people in South Australia. I have yet to see any evidence of this spirit of openness in this matter.

I would appreciate action in this matter. I have been quite patient in this matter. I know how slowly the wheels of government move. As all South Australians do. I beg therefore, in the old fashioned some sign that the state can handle the truth in a spirit of openness worthy of a body which purports to represent the will of the people, and which was elected on the basis of that promise of openness and democracy.

I note today the Citizens’ Jury 2, formed by the Premier of South Australia to consider specific matters has delivered its verdict to the State Government and people of South Australia. I note the reaction of the nuclear industry and experts to that verdict. I note that lack of trust in government is a major stumbling block in the view of the People’s Jury. The findings of the citizens’ jury present no difficulty when compared to my experience in obtaining the information I have sought since I was a young in the 1990s. I am now quite. It is 2016.

I find it highly lamentable and deplorable that the State Government has expressed views which convey the judgement that the people of South Australia are ill informed on matters of nuclear undertakings and the effects of them.

That such judgements are passed by politicians who have, from the 1950s until the present day, repeatedly refused to be open and honest with the people of SA. And who, it seems to me, have the goal of keeping the people of this state of Australia in a goldfish bowl of the very ignorance we are accused of.
If is also interesting to note that an alleged ignoramus like me is told documents do not exist, whereas a Doctor of science, such as Dr. Cross, is told that he cannot see the documents because they do, in fact exist. This information is in the public interest. Why are the people of the State being denied access to it?

I ask the readers of my blog to consider writing to Minister Hunt asking for the Radiological Monitoring Data for South Australian Drinking Water Storages for the period 1956 to 1963. If English is not your first language, please write to the Minister in your first language. I ask also that you consider writing to the Minister via snail mail and not emailing the Minister. I ask most firmly that your letters, if you decide to write one, remain formal and polite. Irony is encouraged. Mention of the Dead Parrot Routine would probably be frowned upon by authorities, as perfect a fit as it is.

I continue to seek the radiological monitoring data for South Australian drinking water storages for the period 1956 to 1963.

Previous requests for this information have resulted in the following State Government and agency reply documents as follows:
Letter 08/127/255, 3.2.1995, Jill Fitch, Radiation Protection Branch, South Australian Health Commission.

All of the preceding documents conveyed that the information I sought did not exist.
I refer also to the following documents addressed to me by the then Minister for Environment and Conservation, Mr. John Hill:

03EC2212 dated 11 June 2003

03EC2951 dated 19 June 2003

On 11 June 2003 Minister Hill advised me that in relation to my request for this information that:
“Your letter refers to a Freedom of Information application lodged by Dr Cross in January 2002. You should note that this application was submitted before the election of a Labor Government in South Australia in March 2002. At that time, the secrecy provisions of the Act prevented the release of the information requested by Dr. Cross. …..This government was elected to office with a commitment to do whatever is reasonable and appropriate to ensure there are no impediments to the public availability of information……” The then Minister then confirmed the election promise to specifically to change the “secrecy” provisions of section 19 of the Radiation Protection and Control Act, 1982.
This was done, the Minister informed me, on 5 December 2002.

I note that the State Government’s formal documents addressed to Dr Cross regarding the rejection of the Cross FOI Application and the of the rejection of the subsequent appeal both confirm that the documents do indeed exist.

This is in stark contrast to the State government documents addressed to me dated 3.2.1995, 1.11.1995, 19.5.1996 all advise me via Fitch, Abbott and Olsen that the documents I sought and still seek did not exist. In this regard Mr Olsen SA Water to supply me with documents for a later period which did and do exist. Letters Letter MFI, 100876, SA Water 10713/95, E.J. Phipps, Chief Executive (with enclosures: Data sheets of radiological monitoring of SA Water storages from 1964 to 1995), and Letter MFI 00876, SA Water Corp 10713/95, E.J. Phipps, Chief Executive confirm that with the supply of the documents covering the data from 1964 I now had all documents which exist.

I refer also to the letter to me from then Minister Hill dated 19 June 2003. In this letter the State Labor Government advises me that “Your matter is receiving attention and a response will be forwarded to you as soon as possible.” The letter is signed by Carolyne Lee, Office Manager for the Minister for Environment and Conservation.

How much longer will the State Government be in providing me with an answer to my requests? Can I see the documents that record the readings from the radiological monitoring of SA drinking water storages from 1956 until 1963 please?

I have been quite patient in this matter. I know how slowly the wheels of government move. As all South Australians do. I beg therefore, some sign that the State government can handle the truth in a spirit of openness worthy of a body which attempts to represent the will of the people, and which was elected on the basis of that promise of openness and democracy in public administration.

I find it highly lamentable and deplorable that the State Government has expressed views that convey the judgement, made by the current Premier recently, that the people of South Australia are ill informed on matters relating to nuclear undertakings and their consequences.

My experience provides much to contemplate in precisely these matters. I appreciate your eventual determination in relation to my request for the information I have been seeking from successive SA governments. I do not understand why it is taking what I perceive to be a very long time.

Yours Sincerely,

Paul Langley

Post by tracked package with signature on delivery and delivery confirmation notice on 8 Nov 2016